So my first tank is a panzer IV vorpanzer and I am just finishing airbrushing my base coat of MM panzer grey. I’ve been reading about various ways of adding some chromatic variations in the base color since it is REALLY monotonous drak grey right now. From the techniques I’ve read it is good to mix a slightly light shade of grey and airbrush the center of panels and such to vary the color a little and add some fading. Is this a general concept that most people use? After this do you do some type of filter to tie the colors together or just go on to washing to highlight the details?
That is one of the endless way to weather a tank. Use your imagination, experiment. You can lightly spray other colors also to create dust and dirt or rust. Washes will add depth to the overall finish but can also be used to simulate oil spills or greasy spots. Then, drybrushing will accentuate edges and details but can also be used to add chipped paint effect, scratches, etc… The best is to have photos of the subject (which is not that easy) and trying to reproduce what you see.
I recently had to weather my Panther with hard edges camouflage pattern and I wasn’t sure about fading the paint. Someone suggested me to lightly spray Tamiya “buff” everywhere and it did turned out pretty good.
There is no real answer to this but that is my way to see it. Hope this help.
Hi, Vtrockin,
I use this method pretty much all the time on military vehicles - eliminates the need for pre-shading and washes/ filters. I normally start with a black base coat, and then apply thin coats of increasingly lighter shades of the same colour. You can then use some dry-brushing for highlights if you want. a misted overspray of the base colour over the whole model helps to blend everything together, but you’ve got to be very gentle, and spray from a distance at a very low pressure, when doing this.
Italeri / Revell AG 1/35 AMTANK
Dragon 1/35 Flak 36:
Trumpeter 1/72 Jagdpanzer Ferdinand:
Cheers,
Chris.
That is something that is done quite often but IMHO doesn’t look real unless VERY well done. I would go with the usual wash/drybrush treatment.